


The Path Before Us

by starlight_and_seafire



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Damerey Week, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, POV Poe, The Force Ships It, Wedding Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-04 04:07:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16339496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlight_and_seafire/pseuds/starlight_and_seafire
Summary: Poe thought the Force had been a wondrous thing a moment ago.It’s nothing compared to what he sees before him now.For Damerey Week - Day 4: The Force





	The Path Before Us

The waiting is the hardest part.

It’s always been the hardest part.

Poe shuffles his feet, glances around the crowd before locking eyes with his father, who sits just a few yards away. Nothing has even really happened yet, but already there are tears in Kes Dameron’s eyes. Poe shakes his head a little at his father, grinning despite the tears welling up in his own eyes in response to his father’s emotions.

He remembers another time, a long time ago, when he was just a little boy. His mother had promised to take him up in her ship for the first time. He was eager, enthusiastic, tugging on her hand with his much smaller one, short legs pumping furiously in his haste to get up into the sky.

She had placed him on her lap, pulling the belt tight around him while tucking him close. He was happy, so, so happy, as his mother started the engines. Seconds before they took off, she poked him gently in the side.

“Wave to papa, darling,” she says over the sound of his giggles.

In his eagerness to fly, he barely registers the look on his father’s face as he waves at him. His father brushes tears off his cheeks, but waves back anyway, a blinding smile on his face.

He turns his attention back to his mother and to the controls in front of him. “I’m ready to go, let’s go!”

“Patience, dear. It’ll be worth the wait, I promise you.”

Moments later, he lets out a whoop as they take off into the sky.

The sudden clarity of the memory hits him hard. Poe bounces on his toes a little, as he’s brought back into the present moment once more, eagerness and excitement thrumming through him as he continues his wait. He notices his father laughing at him, and Poe gives him a little wave, since it’s probably inappropriate to give him any of the other hand gestures he was thinking of, not today of all days, anyway.

Patience was never his strong suit. He flew off and on in the decade after his mother’s death, but it wasn’t until he joined the New Republic Navy that he got to do what he loved every day. He wonders what he would have done if she hadn’t been a pilot, if she hadn’t listened to his pleas to go flying and nestled him into her lap as she pointed out the different controls lining the ship’s interior.

He remembers flying with Rapier Squadron, remembers the crawling sensation on the back of his neck when he had the first nagging suspicion that the Empire - or some nasty analogue of it - had taken root in the galaxy once more.

Even more so, he remembers the stomach dropping, blood curdling sensation when it became more than just a suspicion, when it turned out to be a stone-cold certainty that there was an evil to fight once more.

He remembers when General Organa – Leia – had shown up on his proverbial doorstep so soon after he lost Muran and invited him to join the Resistance. It had been ages since he had last seen her, would never have expected her to appear that day to tell him that the Resistance needed him.

His father’s voice, an echo from his childhood, played in his mind, wondering if their fight against the Empire had all been for nothing.

It wasn’t for nothing, Poe thought. Their teachings, his mother’s and his father’s, the Rebellion’s as a whole, ran through his blood. Maybe they couldn’t finish it then, but they had taught him the importance of fighting against evil in any way he could, whenever he could.

He learned so many lessons from them. His father taught him strength, his mother taught him to fly and fight, and Leia taught him to lead.  But he was never good at waiting, had never liked to spend his time waiting when he could be _doing_. But maybe, just maybe, the Force was there for him in each of those early moments, giving him the patience to wait until he could do, its guiding hands nudging him along the right path.

He glances up at the Force Tree from where he stands in its shadow. He doesn’t have any Force sensitivity - at least he thinks he doesn’t, not really - but he believes in it. And he marvels at it, even if he could never understand it like Rey does.

If the Force led him here, if it led her here . . . well, he understands why people worship it.

What else could explain what led her to him, or what led him to her, what led them together?

She had been so alone. She had no friends and no family on the harsh desert planet of Jakku, just fought to survive from one day to the next, hoping that one day her family would return to her. There was no reason, no indication, that anything would ever change for her, not really. And then one day he was sent to meet Lor San Tekka, which led to capture and then an escape from a Star Destroyer. Meanwhile, BB-8 had rolled into her life, and then Finn, and soon enough . . . well, soon enough he couldn’t help but introduce himself to her, drawn to her like a flower to the sun.

Out of all the possible paths he could have taken, out of all the possible paths she could have taken, the numerous obstacles and challenges in their way. . . somehow, they were led here, to this very moment.

If he was worried about crying when he saw the tears welling up in his father’s eyes a few moments ago, well, now he was having to turn away from the onlookers just to wipe at his own tears.

“Calm down, man,” Finn says, a teasing note to his voice. “It hasn’t even started yet.”

He grumbles something at Finn, but there’s no heat to it, and he takes the proffered tissue that Finn holds out to him. He sees Finn glance to the side, sees a blinding smile overtake his face.

“Spoke too soon, buddy,” he says with a wink, taking the tissue back from Poe and shoving it into a pocket, as the music starts swelling.

Poe thought the Force had been a wonderous thing a moment ago.

It’s nothing compared to what he sees before him now.

Rey’s resplendent in a flowing emerald green gown, the sunlight glinting off her hair. The sunlight had nothing on her smile though, as she walked down the aisle towards him. He can’t help but return her smile, practically beaming at her, as he feels his heart swell with all the love, all the adoration, that he feels for her.

No one accompanied her down the aisle. She had been adamant that no one would be giving her away, _I’m my own person, why would someone even be giving me away_ , and the memory makes his heart feel like it would burst from how fond he is of her. He’s staring at her as she continues her walk, but for half a second, over her shoulder and out of the corner of his eye, he thinks he sees something.

But there’s nothing that could drag his eyes away from her in this moment, not as she moves to stand next to him.

His hands shake as they reach out to hold hers.

Her hands are trembling a bit too, and he wants to lean forward and kiss her. Instead, he rubs his thumbs along her knuckles and just lets himself gaze at her.

She leans forward, a wicked grin on her face, and whispers “Don’t tell Rose, but I threw the heels she tried to make me wear into your father’s garden. I’m not wearing some stupid shoes just because they go with the dress.”

She hadn’t wanted to wear a dress at first, but then she discovered the flowy, gauzy gown in a market on some backwater planet. It wasn’t so much the dress itself, but the brilliant green that drew her to it, calling to her like the color had on Takodana. She told him that the color reminded her of new beginnings, of the path that ultimately led her to him.

It seemed like fate that the dress fit her so perfectly. Or maybe it was the Force, once again giving its blessings to the union.

He offers her a watery smile, hoping that he can make it through the ceremony without outright sobbing. Considering how sentimental his thoughts have become, he wouldn’t bet on it.

Of course, Snap had bet twenty credits that he would be sobbing like a baby before they had even begun to exchange their vows.

Well, causing Snap to lose a bet was usually a good motivator, he’ll try to focus on that.

The officiant, a woman Poe has known since he was a little boy, begins the ceremony. Luckily, the traditional vows are so ingrained into his brain that he doesn’t get lost when she speaks, considering how distracted he is by the woman in front of him.

If Rey’s amused grin is any indication, he must have a dopey smile on his face. It’s okay though, the love is so evident in her eyes that he doesn’t much care if she laughs at him. It’s a beautiful laugh.

He’s gazing so intently at her that he can tell the exact moment, something, some feeling, washes over her. He doesn’t know what it is, but something in the air changes. He’s not concerned though. He’s seen the expression before. He just can’t quite figure out why she suddenly seems as if she’s in the middle of meditation.

A glimmer of sorts, a faint blue light, catches his eye over her shoulder. There, standing near the Force Tree, are two figures he recognizes well.

Shara Bey stands there, a bright smile on her face and tears glimmering in her eyes as she locks eyes with her son. Although not a tall woman, she towers over the much shorter presence of Leia Organa.

It’s the first time he’s seen Leia since those first few days after she passed. It wasn’t unexpected, not exactly – she had seemed to sense the end coming long before she took her final breath. And, on her instruction, and with the support of the heads of the various divisions, he stepped into her – admittedly very small – boots when she had become one with the Force. She wasn’t gone, not really. Those first few days she had showed up when he was at his lowest, stressed beyond belief and pulled in twenty different directions, comforting him and giving him counsel.

He’s grateful that she’s here today.

But his attention doesn’t remain on her for long. It’s one thing to see Leia, someone strong with the Force, here before him. It’s an entirely different thing to see his mother for the first time in almost three decades.

He feels like he’s been punched in the gut. He also feels more joy than he can ever begin to comprehend.

There are a million things rushing through his head as he looks at her. He hopes that she’s proud of him. He hopes that she likes Rey. He hopes she knows that he saved her ring all this time just to make sure it went to the right partner. He’s sure it had.

She doesn’t say anything. He’s not sure she could have even if she wanted to. But he feels it, in some strange way, everything that she wants to say but can’t. Even if he couldn’t, the smile on her face, still as warm and wide as before, manages to turn into something a bit softer, and her hand rests above her heart as she looks back at him.

When he turns back to Rey, her smile is gentle, fond, yet knowing. He squeezes her hand, rubs a thumb over the finger that his mother’s ring rests on.

He repeats the words that the officiant asks of him, then repeats the words that have been inscribed on his heart from the day he asked Rey to marry him.

He thinks that the memory of her words will stick with him forever. Within moments, they lay their palms together and the officiant wraps the cord around their hands. Cheers and applause rise from the crowd, and he leans forward to kiss her, can’t help but lean in once, then twice more, so overwhelmed and in awe of how this moment came together.

He was just a farm boy from Yavin IV, who became a commander in the New Republic Navy, turned Resistance fighter turned leader.  

She was just a scavenger from the desert, who became the hope of the galaxy – and the hope of his galaxy, too.

He doesn’t understand how or why he’s been blessed like this. He’s just thankful that the Force has led them here to this moment.

The war remains ongoing, but he can feel something, in the air or in the Force, or maybe just in his gut, that tells him that it’s coming to an end. The First Order is stretched thin, fighting guerilla warfare on multiple fronts while the Resistance keeps on going for their throat. He feels it, somewhere deep within, that the war will come to an end sooner rather than later.

He’s more hopeful now than he has been in years, especially now that he’s wed the love of his life, the partner that he’s waited for - not always so patiently - but who was absolutely worth every struggle, every stumble, every challenge. Despite all the seemingly endless years of pain and suffering he believes in good, and he believes in the Force. He believes that – somehow, in some way – the Force has led him, both of them, here, to this absolutely perfect, this absolutely pure and golden moment. And he knows – somehow, in some way – that the Force will lead them on to many great things . . . together.


End file.
